L: Save the World
by mimashita
Summary: A decade after L dies, an eerily familiar shinigami returns to visit Maki, who is now a medical student fending for herself. What happens when the shinigami reveals his identity, and how will the two deal with their quickly darkening world?
1. Chapter 1

She released a huff of air as she toed off her shoes and stepped up into her slippers. The small step up into the house felt like a giant leap, as tired as her legs were. It was already easy for her to get tired; the doctors said it had something to do with the virus she had carried as a child. Twelve years later and it still held true. Though she was certain the same would hold for anyone with a course load like hers. It was hot outside, anyhow.

But she wanted to be done. She wanted to be out in the world helping people. For a long time, she had debated with herself over what to do with her future. On one hand, she could go on to medical school and follow in her fathers footsteps. On the other, she could train and-but that was a silly thought, and she had decided long ago, anyway. She was going to be a doctor. She would continue her father's work.

The image of her father's blackened face flashed in front of her eyes and she was staggered. Frozen to the spot, she dropped her bags to the floor. Her ears were numb to the sound of her groceries rolling across the flooring. As she paused to gather herself, she was struck by the injustice of it all. The memories she wanted to forget were as clear as if they were yesterday...while the ones she tried to cling desperately to slipped away as quickly as water through her fingers.

She sighed and tucked a strand of her hair behind her ear, crouching down to collect the mess she had made. It was easy for her hair to get into her face-she hadn't changed the cut of it for over a decade. Her friends called it childish, that she would wear a school girl's cut of bangs and bob, but the one time she had swept it up out of her face she had been reminded of /that woman/.

Before long, she had assembled her groceries in their proper places in the kitchen and headed into her bedroom. Her purse was the first thing to go, placed on top of her dresser just inside the door. Usually she would make an effort to fold away her dirty clothes from the day, but that night all she did was shed them as she crossed the room to the bathroom. For a long time she hung her head under the beating shower, letting the heat hit the back of her neck and soothe her aches.

By all accounts, it couldn't be considered a proper shower. She forged on through her nightly routine nonetheless, clumsily combing through her hair and brushing her teeth. By the time she wrapped herself in her robe and headed back to her bedroom, her eyes refused to stay open. Her skin was overflowing with heat from her shower, however, and she took a moment to throw open the balcony doors and let in the sounds of the city.

A groan escaped her as she flopped down into bed on top of the covers, legs and arms splayed out gracelessly. She was just about to slip into sleep when she remembered something: she had forgotten to lock the door. It was a horrible habit of hers, though she really ought to have known better. One hand was raised to paw at her tired face as she readjusted her splayed arms to sit up. Before she made it, however, her hand hit something soft and unusual. Confused, she peered up toward her pillows and stopped.

Beside her third pillow, there was a small patchwork bear. Its white parts were gray from use and one of its button eyes was missing.

Perhaps she should have smiled? That tiny thing had been such a great source of comfort to her for a long time. Just then, though, all she could do was peer curiously up at the stuffed animal with something like sadness in her eyes.

Eventually she rolled over onto her stomach and propped herself up on her elbows, tugging the bear closer to her. In the dark, humid room, it looked like a ghost of what it should have been. She worried at the inside of her cheek for a moment before she pinched the bear's hand between her fingers.

The small speaker holding her mother's message had long since burned out, but she could hear it in her mind as fresh as day. The sounds of the city and the wind blowing the curtains weren't enough to compare.

/Maki-chan, welcome home. How was your day?/

She smiled sadly at the memory, running her fingers down the bear's nose. The next part of the message wouldn't come either, she knew, but that didn't mean she couldn't hear it.

/Maki-chan, welcome home./

It was in his voice-it was always in his voice-and it hurt her to remember it. After what he had done for her, it wasn't fair that he had to die. She still didn't have a proper explanation for it all. Even people with cancer didn't die within a few days. They couldn't time their deaths so accurately. But no matter what, she knew what his voice would have sounded like, what it would be like if he told her about tomorrow...

"Make tomorrow a good day too."

She jumped, her breath catching in her lungs at the sound. The sound of his voice was ingrained in her mind, but it wasn't that clear. In her fright, her tired limbs found new vigor and she threw herself around against her pillows. Her eyes grew wide for what she saw, and for all the breathing she was doing her heart may have ceased beating.

"Alright?" He was perched there on the foot of her bed, knees tucked beneath him. His back was hunched forward to keep his balance-it was as if nothing had changed at all.

She realized that her heart hadn't stopped, but instead was pounding so furiously that the beats ran together. There was nothing she could find to say, though her lips parted to make way. For a long time-seconds that felt like hours-she stared at him. He stared right back in the manner she remembered. It was impossible.

"L." It was, finally, sputtered out from behind clumsy lips.

"Hrm?" He perked slightly, tilting his head in what she assumed was a curious fashion. Apparently he was completely oblivious to her shock, or at least refused to acknowledge it.

"You're-" What? She didn't have anything to go along with that. She had started, but there wasn't anything to finish. Her disbelief crowded out any trust she had in her own eyes. The only possibility she was willing to believe was that she had fallen asleep. She was /dreaming/ of him, of course. It wouldn't be the first time.

"Real." He stated, rather matter-of-factly. It was just like him to know exactly what she was thinking about-but that had been years ago. She must have been dreaming. She was dreaming.

"I-this is impossible. You're dead!" It sounded like she was trying to convince herself, though her panicked voice clearly displayed her continued disbelief. "You've been gone for years! I have-"

"Sugar?" He cut her off, brows raising almost inperceptively underneath his mess of hair.

"What?" She gaped at him. "Of course I have-" Her words failed her again. If she was dreaming, everything suddenly made sense. Of /course/ L's ghost would want to eat sugar.

Something about that familiarity struck her, comforting her in a manner that should have been impossible. Her body relaxed, eased of the tension his sudden appearance had produced. Without a word, she slipped off the bed, careful to keep an eye on him all the while. As she stepped around the bed in a wide arc, he shifted on top of the footboard, readjusting his feet like a bird perching on a wire.

"Just a minute," she offered finally before backing out of the room. Her heart was racing again as she rushed through her apartment, gathering up all the sweets she had and piling it all up on a breakfast tray. There were very few things she could suspend her disbelief for, and even as she scurried about she fully expected to return to an empty room. This thought prompted her to mutter under her breath as she placed the final item-a small plastic container of donuts-on the breakfast tray: "You've gone crazy."

All the same, she loaded the tray into her arms and headed, hesitantly, back into the bedroom. She craned her neck before she made it through the threshhold, almost terrified to find that her delusion was still there. It was enough to slow her footsteps as she moved forward, eyeing him warily.

Though there was no smile on his face, he bristled with something like excitement for the sight of all the sweets.

"You've got a lot there, Maki." He observed.

"Yeah, well,"-she paused, a disgruntled expression on her face despite herself-"You're lucky its grocery day." It was all she could do to bite back at him as she did everyone else. How was one supposed to react to a hungry ghost showing up in the middle of the night?

He didn't seem to notice, however, and had quickly turned his attention to the tray of sweets. She watched as his lips moved thoughtfully; it was clear he was trying to decide what to eat first.

Rather than dig in as she expected, L paused suddenly, peering up at her as he placed his hands palm to palm in front of him. "/Ittedakemasu/."

He held her gaze for a moment in a way that should have been more meaningful than it was. She remembered sunlight on her face, remembered saying just the same thing to him on a rooftop in the summer...

"L!" Suddenly, she was a child all over again. She dropped the tray to the floor, hardly noticing the way it crashed and scattered as she threw her arms around his shoulders and burried her face against his neck.

"You'll get your feet dirty," he announced, voice as even and unshakeable as ever. She barely heard him.

"You're really here!" She choked on the words, tightening her grasp on the cool fabric of his shirt. "You left me, but you're really here!"

Before she knew it, she was sobbing. It had been easy to forget how much she missed him. After so much loss in her life, she'd grown accustomed to forgetting.

He hummed quietly after a moment, finally reaching out to wind his arms around her. She could feel his breath in her hair and his cheek against her temple.

"I've always been here," he whispered. She could almost hear a smile in his voice.

But all she could do was sob, clutching to him desperately. He was lying, of course. He hadn't been there with her for /so long/...

One of his hands found the back of her head, and he ran his fingers along her hair as confidently as he could manage. Comforting others had never been his strong suit. "Shh, Maki."

How could it be so familiar yet so alien to hear him say her name?

"I interrupted your sleep."

Before she could protest, he had tipped back onto the bed, tugging her along with him to lie comfortably atop him. In her state of distress and exhaustion, she would have been satisfied with a bed of concrete.

She cried herself to sleep against him as he stroked her hair


	2. Chapter 2

She woke up to the sound of chewing.

It took her a moment to realize that it wasn't part of a dream. When she did stir, it was slowly, with the ease that came from hot Sunday mornings. Even the curious sound of chewing couldn't interrupt /that/ particular habit.

When she twisted off of her stomach and craned her neck to search out the source of the sound, she was startled all over again. All she could do was flop back down onto her front, fingers curling over the footboard as she peered over the top at him. Her eyes were wide, and the apparent fright on what little he could see of her face caused him pause.

L was seated on her desk chair, the tray of sweets from the night before balanced across his knees. It looked terribly uncomfortable to her, but that was the least of her worries.

"I thought you were a dream." Her voice sounded incredulous at best.

"You should trust your eyes." He nodded, swallowing back a cheekful of donut. "They'll never fool you then."

"Or they'll fool me all the time," she observed, brows raising slightly. It shouldn't have been so easy to respond to him-after all, he was only a delusion. She needed to see a doctor immediately.

L hummed thoughtfully as she questioned her sanity. He plucked up another small donut from the tray between his thumb and forefinger, raising it up for inspection.

"I suppose you're right."

It was a concession she hadn't expected. Except, without their argument coming to fruition she was left with nothing else to say. The silence that fell between them made her uncomfortable, though he seemed generally unaffected. What was she supposed to say to a figment of her imagination?

"You're wondering why I'm here."

"No, more like-" /How/ was more like it, but she gave up before it ever left her mouth. "Sure. Close enough." She paused, brows furrowed in confusion and-possibly-suspicion. "Why /are/ you here?"

"I don't know." He took up the last donut and chewed quietly, drowning the room in silence again.

For a long time she just lied there, watching him suspiciously and waiting for him to disappear. Or for her to wake up.

He didn't seem like he was going to speak, however, far too concerned by the sweets she had gathered for him.

"What /are/ you?" She questioned, finally. If he were a figment of her imagination, he might as well pity her and tell her as much.

"A shinigami, apparently," he said, in a tone that indicated he didn't quite believe it himself. Maki stared openly at him over the footboard, his odd words giving clear weight to her theory that she was imagining things.

"Shinigami don't really exist, L." Suddenly, she felt like she was talking to a child who couldn't grasp that there wasn't a boogie monster.

"You should read more Sherlock Holmes." He paused, though she gave no indication of understanding and he soon continued. "When all other explanations have been eliminated, the remaining scenario-no matter how improbable-must be the solution."

Maki stared blankly at him. Great. Now she was getting literature lectures from a manifestation of her subconscious.

"I died." It hurt her how calmly he could say something like that, but she hadn't time to investigate it.

"But I'm here now." Despite everything, she felt like he was explaining something painfully obvious that she had happened to miss.

"I'm sure you've already come to the conclusion that I'm a figment of your imagination, but I can assure you that isn't the case."

Her expression clearly showed just how ready she was to believe /that/.

He watched her for a moment before deciding it was a fight for another day. "You'll believe me eventually."

Silence fell between them for the third time, but she was afraid to move from the spot. Everything certainly /felt/ real enough...but that was the problem with crazy people, wasn't it? They didn't know they were crazy.

She wasn't sure how much time passed then, though she was certain it felt much longer than it truly was. If this was really happening, she was going to need a better explanation than the one he had given her.

"Then help me. Explain." It was a bit rude, to be honest, but she had grown short-tempered and headstrong a long time ago.

He didn't seem phased by her demand, though he /was/ reluctant to follow it. "It's a very long story."

"It's Sunday."

At least that was enough to draw him away from his sweets. He shed the tray and stepped down off of her desk chair, moving over to crouch in front of her on the other side of the footboard.

He started at the very beginning, detailing the unpublicized story behind a name she had come to learn quite well: Kira. There were films and books and all sorts of things based around the killer's memory. Even now, people idolized him. She had been too young to care for the sensationalized version in the press, however, and L's story was far more interesting than anything a tabloid could publish. Parts of it were very hard to consider truthful, but he spoke with such inflappable honesty that she felt compelled to listen without complaint. At the very least, she could tell that he wholeheartedly believed in what he was telling her.

But he was right: it was a /very/ long story. She dressed behind her closet door as he told her of his initial suspicions about Light Yagami, brushed her teeth while he spoke about the young man joining the team...and by the time they were at her small kitchen table over breakfast, his tale grew truly fantastic. Maki sipped at a bowl of thin soup as L perched across from her, nibbling on gummies from a spilled bag between clauses in his story.

After he described Light's death in his usual nonchalant manner-(a casual tone that only made the images he drew up all the more disturbing)-things fell silent once more. Maki watched him over the rip of her bowl as she sipped at the dregs, inspecting his face for any sign of regret. If he felt it, he wasn't letting her see as much.

"So you want me to believe that you're a death god now?" She sighed, returning her soup bowl to the table.

"I would like that, yes."

All she could do for a moment was watch him with incredulity in her expression. Eventually, however, something occurred to her.

"You mentioned that only people who have touched a shinigami's death note can see them. Then why can I see you?"

L watched her for a moment, clearly expecting her to figure it out on her own. When she didn't, he reached across the table and stuck his hand right into the opening of her purse. It was difficult not to jump at the gesture. She could have been angry, but before she could muster the emotion he had slipped out a tiny strip of paper.

There were many things that confused her then-his ability to pull something from her purse without looking chief among them-but the fact that he had suddenly turned a seemingly meaningless scrap of paper into something significant was the biggest. She stared at it with a mixture of confusion and astonishment.

"How did you know I wouldn't write down someone's name?" To her, it seemed too big of a risk to be entirely trustworthy.

"I didn't take that chance." He paused, brows raised slightly. It wasn't exactly an answer, but she imagined it was the best she would be getting. None of what he had told her made much sense, though the simple /fact/ that he was there made even less sense. If it was all true...why had he bothered in the first place? Why was he there, in /her/ kitchen, when he was supposed to be doing.../whatever/ it was that death gods did? No matter what angle she thought through, she couldn't come up with a rational answer.

"But why?"

He was silent for a long time, peering down at the empty bag in front of him that had once been full of candy. It was as if he were seeing something there that she couldn't.

"I was lonely.


	3. Chapter 3

Three days passed, and L was still at her side. Her grocery budget had gone up considerably since his arrival, even after he explained that he had no need to eat at all. At this point, she really had no choice but to believe him.

One /would/ think that might be a good thing, but instead, it was wreaking havoc on her life. She was distracted in classes, peering out the windows in search of him or-more commonly-doing her best to be alright with the fact that his existence was possible at all. It defied everything she had come to know, logic and science and.../common sense./ People worshiped at temples and churches all over the world, but how many truly, fervently believed in what they were doing?

Who could /possibly/ believe that there were supernatural beings living in the sky, recording names in their magical killing diaries? It was /utterly/-"Ridiculous." She shook her head, peering down at her own notebook.

"Nikaido-san."

She jumped in her seat. Apparently she had completely forgotten where she was. Her eyes went wide as she looked up to her professor, the woman regarding her head-on with a rather disapproving expression. It was understandable, of course. She could feel herself slipping.

"Pay attention, please." Her professor gave her a final warning look before turning back to the diagram pinned to the chalkboard.

"Yes, professor."

Maki deflated against her desk, doing her best to scribble down what the woman at the head of the classroom was going over. Despite the fact that she managed to put the words to paper, none of it stuck in her mind. She had been reduced to a transcription machine.

/Psst./

Her brows furrowed at the sound, no matter how familiar it was. She frowned easily enough, turning her attention to the man in the seat beside her. It would have been more appropriate to call Hiro a /boy/, but the fact that he was in university more than made up for that. Unfortunately.

"What's wrong with you, eh?" Hiro took her questioning look as enough of an answer, apparently. He gave his best attempt at a winning smile, brows raised. She had seen that same smile work on countless young women in the area, but it did little to affect her. It didn't do much to girls over the age of nineteen.

Muroi Hiro was /supposed/ to be her friend. By all accounts, they had known one another for a very long time. He had gone to the same school as she when all of those horrible things had happened to her, when she had been branded a walking contagion. His carefree attitude had left him with only one response to the entire ordeal-he had asked her if she'd really been on a runaway airplane. At the time, his nonchalance had been refreshing. Once Hiro hit puberty, however, things had gone downhill...in the sense of things falling straight into a sinkhole.

"Nothing." She hissed, gaze flitting back to their professor for fear that she might hear the pair of them.

Hiro frowned dramatically, leaning back in his seat to the point that he might go slipping right out of it. If there was one thing she admired about Hiro, however, it was his physicality. He had always been more interested in sports than schooling, even now that he was in university. No matter what he did, he moved in a graceful, smooth sort of way that belied a kind of power.

All the same, she worried for his future patients.

"Oh, come on." He reached across the aisle to her desk, nudging her forearm with his knuckles. "You can tell me."

She hated it, but the only way to shut him up was to say /something/. Frustrated, she shifted in her seat to lean closer to him, brows raised questioningly. "Do you believe in ghosts?"

For a moment, she thought that he would take her seriously. His expression of mild surprise quickly turned into disbelief, and he was on the edge of laughter. She shouldn't have said anything.

Exasperated, Maki sat back up in her seat and returned to her work. Hiro's silent laughter beside her only made her furious.

Three hours and two class periods later, Maki had finally escaped. Her usual hideaway was blisteringly hot in the summer sun, but for lack of anywhere else she was forcing herself through it. At least there was /some/ shelter afforded to her by the overhang meant to protect the door from the weather. The caretaker responsible for watching the three buildings on the center of campus was a nice elderly man, and he had a soft spot for leaving the door open to her. There was a kind of sadness in the way he looked at her, and she imagined that it had something to do with the fact that she attended the same school as her father had. Yamashita-san was old enough to remember him when he was young, too.

The thought saddened her, but it was a dull, distant sort of pain; the kind that came on a humid day to a long-healed bone. She pushed around a clump of rice in her lunchbox, her mind as distant as it could be from lunch period. As she tossed her hair out of her face and tipped her head back toward the sky, however, she could /literally/ feel the weight of reality hit her.

And of course, it was because of L. He was standing at the far side of the roof in the sunlight, peering across the way toward her small piece of shelter.

Her eyes went wide, and as she scrambled to her feet the remnants of her lunch went spilling across the tarred rooftop. She reached the edge of the roof and reached out to him, palms out and pleadingly.

"L, what are you doing here?" She looked over her shoulder, back toward the door she knew anyone could come stepping through at any moment. For then, it was still closed. They were still safe...

Except, the instant she seemed to calm-her heart granted some reprieve from its furious beating-she looked down. L wasn't /standing/ on the edge of the roof. He was /floating/, mid-air, beyond the railing intended to protect people from falling.

"What?" Maki jumped back, her head swimming from the view of campus from above. She tripped over her own feet and went plunging down onto her backside. Before long, she was reduced to a groaning, knobby-kneed mass on the tarred roof. At least it was warm.

"You could have warned me, you know." She grumbled, rubbing at the back of her hip as she glared up at L...but she received no answer. He was still looking back toward the door, attention set and brow furrowed ever so slightly. Whatever he was looking at, it must have been incredibly important.

Without a second thought, she followed his gaze back to where she had been sitting before. She heard his footsteps before she saw him emerge from behind the door-Hiro was there, where he had never come before. He had always told her she was silly for going up there, that she was abusing the kindness of an old man. It was rich, really, coming from someone like him. Just as she was about to open her mouth to question him, however, she recognized the expression on her friend's face.

His eyes were glossy, lips parted just so in the set of despair. It was a look so unlike Hiro that Maki was struck speechless as she sat there on the rooftop. He didn't even seem to notice her.

Hiro reached up and hooked a thumb into his already loosened tie, pulling it away with ease before discarding it to the ground. His pace was unwavering but slow, long, steady strides taking him toward her. But he still didn't say anything. He still didn't notice her.

It took the sound of his bag hitting the rooftop for Maki to snap back to reality. Hiro was standing at the very edge of the roof, pausing only to step out of his shoes...

"No!" She screeched, suddenly coherent. Stumbling to her feet, she darted forward.

One of his legs was over the railing.

All she could hear was the pounding of her own footsteps.

Just as his body began to tilt forward over the railing-destined for that drop that had made her head spin moments before-her tiny fingers closed around the back of his shirt.

But he was too heavy, and her hands were sweaty from the heat.

"Hiro, no." She groaned, tightening her grip around the small amount of fabric she had managed to grab onto. The heat was swarming in on her and her head was spinning, and she could feel her hold on him slipping. Will alone wasn't enough, but even if it had been it wouldn't have done much good. The corners of her vision were blurring and darkening, and there wasn't anything she could do.

The last thing she remembered was watching Hiro fall away from her


	4. Chapter 4

She expected to hear a thud. It was inevitable. Hiro would crash to the ground, and she would hear that sickening, moist crunch of his body colliding against concrete. His neck would be broken first, if he were lucky, and he wouldn't have to go through the pain of every bone in his body cracking against stone...

But the sound never came. As soon as she was coherent again, all she could hear was a slow, steady beeping off in the distance. Everything was dark, but as soon as she opened her eyes in an attempt to rid herself of the black, the lights above her flared to life from between her dry eyelids. The glare of it struck her straight in the back of her skull, shooting tendrils of pain down her neck. She groaned, reaching up to shade her eyes and finding her motion limited by an intravenous tube positioned in the back of her hand.

"Sir! She's awake."

Whoever it was, his voice was young and far too enthusiastic to be trusted. Besides, it made her head throb. She managed to squeeze out a word of questioning, but it sounded foreign and nonsensical even to /her/ ears.

"Ah, good. Nikaido-san, how are you feeling?"

The second voice belonged to a much older man, of that she was sure before his blurry image began to focus in her vision. Two men were at her bedside, and from what she gathered she happened to be in a hospital bed. Well, that explained the beeping at least.

"I-painful." It was a struggle to be intelligible, but it was apparently good enough for the older of the pair. He nodded thoughtfully and turned to his companion brows raised slightly.

While the elder of the two men moved with a certain hesitant grace, his partner was steadfast but light on his feet. Even as he stood at the end of her bed she could tell-at any moment, she expected him to leap into action. The badge hanging out of his suit pocket told her that might even be necessary, and her heart shot into a race that was echoed by that annoying beeping sound.

"Relax, relax." The younger man managed what she supposed was a charming smile, a strand of his blonde hair falling out from behind his ear as he gestured toward her.

It only reminded her...

"Hiro?" Her heart almost stopped as she tried to sit up, panicked, turning to the older man. But his expression was grim, and as he lowered his gaze to the floor and shook his head...she knew.

Every inch of her went numb for the news, and she sank back onto the pillows. She had the distant sense that her head was spinning from moving too fast, but she honestly couldn't care. There wasn't much at all she could feel past the shock of it all.

The lights above her head were so, so bright, and the smallest of movements from the men sounded like the screams of monsters.

"I know you've been through an ordeal, but I'd like to ask you a few questions if you don't mind."

It was all she could do to nod her head. What else could she say? No? If this was going to happen, she wanted it over and done with while she was still in shock. Behind her closed eyelids, she could hear the heavier of the men shifting down into the seat at her bedside, could hear the rumple of his suit jacket as he gestured for the other to follow suit.

"I'll make it brief." The old man promised, but she wasn't entirely sure. Saying anything would have taken too much effort, however.

He cleared his throat, glancing to the man beside him to give him a permissive nod. The blonde tugged a small notepad out of inside his suit jacket and clicked open a pen.

It sounded like the thud she had never heard, and her stomach rolled.

"Witnesses saw you on the rooftop with Muroi just before he fell, is that correct?" Though his voice was gentle, like that of a father speaking to a child, she suddenly realized what they might have been there for. Hiro had been a perfectly happy, excellent young man. He was going to be a doctor, could have his pick of any hundred of women, was born into money and status...and he just decided, one day, to jump off of a roof? People with everything they wanted in life weren't supposed to commit suicide. Not unless they were driven to it.

Was that what they thought? That she had /driven/ him to suicide?

"I didn't see-"

"Tell them the truth, Maki."

L was there again, perched on the bedside table with his bare toes curled over the edge. The two men at her bedside were completely oblivious to his presence. That was right; only people who had touched his death note could see him. If she hadn't panicked like a child, maybe she would have been able to stop Hiro in time? If she hadn't rushed over to try and get L out of the way...maybe she would have saved him?

She swallowed hard against a lump in her throat. Though her eyes were burning with tears, they didn't register in her mind at all. Some distant part of her brain was confused-why was she going to cry? What had happened?

"I didn't see him at first." A shaky, soothing breath escaped her at that. "I was eating my lunch on the roof. I do that sometimes...the caretaker knows me." There was no need to explain it, but something about doing so made her feel normal. She needed that; nothing about this was normal. "He just...walked out." Her voice broke, and she couldn't continue. She could see him as if he were right there in front of her, thumbing off his tie and dropping his bag as he moved closer. His suit jacket was next...and then his shoes...

"It was like I wasn't even there."

The men were listening patiently, but it didn't matter. She wasn't talking to them, not really. As she lay there, seemingly peering off into the distance, her gaze was locked with L's.

"Why didn't you say anything?" She whispered, brows furrowed. L only peered down at her, expression unchanging. "Why didn't you /do/ anything?"

Shifting in his seat, the older man straightened and leaned closer to his companion. "Hart, give us a moment, please."

Vaguely, in her periphery, she could see the blonde stand and push his way through the curtains. Most of her attention, however, was on L. He was either unwilling or unable to answer her questions, but either way she didn't like it.

Her view of him was soon obscured, however, as the detective leaned closer to her bedside, resting a hand on the small plastic bumper meant to keep her safely atop the mattress. There was something weighing heavily on him as he pulled off his glasses, holding them by the hinge at his side. He seemed determined to avoid her gaze for the moment, peering down at the lenses as he drew a steady breath.

"Those of us left behind always feel guilty," he said, brows furrowed deeply. "I can tell you that from first-hand experience." Finally, he looked back to her, fingers twitching against the plastic of the bed as if he were tempted to reach out to her. "Whatever you do, do not blame yourself. It won't accomplish anything."

He had thought she was speaking to herself.

All the same, she couldn't help but feel touched. It had been a long time since someone offered her some kind of advice. A pang of pain broke through her shock then, and as she nodded at his words she was forcing back tears.

"I will leave my contact information here for you, alright?" He waited for her to nod again before he continued. "If you remember anything that might help us, please contact me."

The way he frowned almost looked like a smile, somehow.

Before she could say anything else, the man pressed out from between the break in the curtain. She could hear his footsteps retreat, the sound of a door opening and closing.

He met his partner outside of the room, a deep crease between his eyebrows as he resettled his glasses on the bridge of his nose. Hart perked at his arrival, pushing off of the wall in the hallway and stepping forward to meet him.

"What do you think, Yagami-san?"

The old man rubbed at the stubble across his jaw and shook his head, a frown clear on his face. "Another dead-end."


End file.
